Barnett Newman (American, 1905–1970)
Oil and masking tape on canvas; 89 3/4 x 53 5/8 in. (228 x 136.2 cm)
George A. Hearn Fund, 1968 (68.178)
© 2011 The Barnett Newman Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Newman was interested in creating an art of "pure idea" that could speak to man's tragic condition, yielding metaphysical understanding. To reach that state, the art would have to jettison all narrative, all figuration, and even pare down detail and painterly incident. By 1948, he had honed his concept of "pure idea." He explored the philosophical notion articulated by Edmund Burke in the eighteenth century that the merely beautiful be renounced in favor of something greater and more meaningful: the sublime. Newman spoke of artists' need for "freeing ourselves of impediments" in order to produce images of "revelation, real and concrete." And by 1948, Newman had developed his own unique format, designed to express these concerns of meaning and content.
Newman's compositions are built around a strict format: a field of color is bisected vertically by one or a few bands (narrow or wide) that he referred to as "zips." Such extreme minimalism, though, derives from an approach described by the artist as intuitive: "I start each painting as if I had never painted before. … I have no formal solutions … I paint out of high passion, and although my way of working may seem simple, for me it is difficult and complex." Concord is not a geometric picture. The colored field is not meant as a void on which a simple boundary is delineated. Pictures like this one ask the viewer to consider whether space alone, without narrative detail, can convey meaning. In Newman's words, "Instead of using outlines, instead of making shapes or setting off spaces my drawing declares the space." The zip is "a field that brings life to the other fields, just as the other fields bring life to this so-called line."
Related
Index Terms
Art Movement/Style
- Abstract Expressionism [Gestural Painting] in Twentieth-Century American Art
- Abstract Imagists in Modern and Contemporary Art
- Abstract Imagists in Twentieth-Century American Art
- Color Field Painting in Modern and Contemporary Art
- Color Field Painting in Twentieth-Century American Art
- Hard-Edge Painting in Modern and Contemporary Art
- Hard-Edge Painting in Twentieth-Century American Art
- Modern and Contemporary Abstract Art
Artist
Material and Technique
- Collages
- Painting in Oil on Canvas from North America
